The End of All Things
by hermetcrab
Summary: The Joker ponders the future with Batman.


From this high up the usually loud noise of the city was a low hum, with the odd bleat of a siren or an impatient horn standing out. The only clear noise was the crunching of Bruce's heavy boots across the clear rooftop. The noise could have been silenced if necessary, but with the present approaching company, there was no need.

Bruce was looked determinedly at the figure standing ahead, whose shoulders were hunched as if the figure were cold but Bruce knew such little things as temperature didn't affect the man. He was shifting about almost nervously, bobbing onto each foot in a sort of warped idea of a dance, a tuneless humming accompanied it but most of the noise was lost to the light breeze.

Bruce stopped by the man, unsure of how to carry on or even why he was here. It had been easy to hunt the man down tonight; it was as if he wanted to be found.

He could see the familiar face clearly now. The freshly applied make up stood out stark white, contrasting with the blacked eyes and enhancing the redden excuse for a smile. The unkempt green stained hair was slicked back to his head, with the odd lock falling into his eyes due to the wind.

But there was something different tonight. The usually sickeningly gleeful face was lifeless and dull. The eyes that regularly sparked from the untold joke sat mournfully in their sockets, blending in with the blacked rims. The permanently smiling lips were turned down, lips humming the unrecognisable tune unenthusiastically as if he'd forgotten he was humming it.

Bruce was unnerved by the odd behaviour.

"What's going on Joker?" Batman growled.

All reason told Bruce to simply proceed to the inevitable struggle they usually had and eventually knock the Joker out and carry him back to Arkham, but the way the Joker was acting made him hesitate.

The Joker stopped humming and turned slightly towards Bruce, and small smile flitting to his lips.

"I was just ah, pondering things."

Bruce narrowed his eyes.

"Do you want to share you're ponderings now or do you want to tell them to me on the way to Arkham?"

The Joker sighed and his eyes switched back to looking out towards the city.

"Always trying to do what's right, or should I say, what you think is right, aye Bats?"

"And letting you go would be right?" Bruce glowered, "Or maybe standing up here listening to your musings would be more beneficial."

The Joker didn't seem to have heard Bruce's last remark or chose to ignore it as he simply carried out staring out at the city, the odd expression still present on his face.

"Shall I tell you what I've been thinking?" He almost whispered.

"Enlighten me." Bruce growled.

Suddenly, the Joker leaped so he was standing on the very edge of the rooftop, the heels of his battered shoes hanging off the ledge. Bruce went to lung to grab him but stopped half way, not wanting to provoke an actual fall from him.

"I was wondering what you would do if I jumped." The Joker said breathlessly.

"I would save you." Bruce said simply.

The Joker stared at him, lips twitching.

"Why? It wouldn't be breaking you ah "one rule". I would have jumped. Done. Finished. The End to all your problems."

Bruce could hardly believe he was having this conversation.

"I would save you because you are a person that needed saving. I don't pick and choose the nice people to save and leave the rest to die. It isn't my place to choose who lives and who dies, I just try and save as many as I can. If they turn out to be criminals, I let the police do their jobs. And as for you being the source of all my problems," Bruce paused, a grim smile curling his lips. "I very much doubt they would all merely stop at your death."

The Joker stared at Bruce, biting his ruined lip. His long coat billowing around his legs but other than that, he was perfectly still.

"I told you once that we were destined to do this forever."

"Yes I know" Bruce said, unsure of where this was going.

"How much longer do you think our forever is?" The Joker almost whispered, lips twitching with anticipation.

Bruce eyed him curiously.

"What do you mean?"

The Joker extended his arms and gestured around him.

"All this, doing this. You seem like a fairly ah, fit individual, but even you have an expiry date. I give you maybe ah, 10 years? Eventually all those bullet holes and stab wounds are going to take their toll and you're going to want out. And that leaves me." He said the last phase bitterly, his eyes dating back to Bruce's face. "What'll I do without you?"

Bruce brow furrowed. How could he be talking like this? How could he expect Bruce to have the answers to such questions?

"What are you even asking me? What do you expect me to do about the fact that we will inevitably age?"

The Jokers eyes crinkled with sadness. He leaped off the edge of the roof and grabbed Bruce's shoulders.

"Don't you see? Either that will happen and I will be left all on my own with only the pathetic common criminal to entertain me or…" His eyes widened and he bit his bottom lips, fingers tightening their grip on Bruce's shoulders. "We go down together; both of us at the same time. Laving no trace, no clues to our past, like it should be done. I know if you were killed before your time I wouldn't want to live in such a dull place without you. It's best if we go out together!"

The Joker's eyes held such conviction of these words Bruce almost believe them himself before he snapped back and rage set in.

"What?" He growled, brushing the Joker's hands off him easily. "You really expect me to enter some weird suicide pact with you, just so you're not bored?"

"Think about it," The joker whispered urgently, tongue darting out to moisten his lips. "What'll you do when its all over, when Gotham doesn't need batman or you simply can't be him any more, what'll you do then, hum?"

Bruce paused. He had never given this much thought. What would he do? He used to have faint dreams of him retiring to start a family one-day, to carry on the Wayne name. It used to be with Rachel but the Joker had put a stop to that dream. But now he thought about it, could he really just give up being the dark knight? It had become so much of his life he couldn't even think about going one day without some case to be working on, a criminal to be searching for, a crime to prevent, the Joker to hunt.

Bruce stared into the Jokers face. He was a mass of tics and insanity; he was just a ball of untameable destruction and chaos. There was no way he would ever stop this, stop the chaos and the madness. He would hunt Bruce down if he tried to retire. If he tried really hard now he could work out who the Batman really was, it was just more fun to not know, to just have his precious Batman as more than a man, as an equal in his eyes.

Bruce didn't see any way out of this.

"Why does it have to be this way," Bruce said in a hoarse voice. "Why must it always end in destruction with you?"

"With us." The Joker corrected. "It always ends in destruction because with us it has to. We can't just fade out because we are so much more than that."

He reached out a gloved hand again and gently touched the hard surface of Bruce's Kevlar clad shoulder.

"Eventually everything burns."


End file.
